League will look again at reseedingPosted by Mike Florio on January 6, 2011, 8:23 AM EST

During Wednesday’s edition of ProFootballTalk Live, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell addressed the situation presented by an 11-5 Saints team going on the road to face the 7-9 Seahawks in the wild-card round.

“This is something that we’ll look at again,” Goodell said. “We looked at it a few years ago. The strong view of the clubs was that you should win your division and if you win your division, you should be rewarded with a home game. There is another view that winning your division should automatically get you into the playoffs and into the postseason but that it should not automatically reward you with a home game. That is something that will continue to be debated. We will look at that this offseason. Let’s let the playoffs play out here a little bit and try to understand what the ramifications are rather than reacting to a specific circumstance.”

Of course, if the Seahawks beat the Saints (NBC’s Mike Mayock gives them a “fighter’s chance“), the complaints from the reseeding crowd could grow even louder. Playing at home dramatically increases Seattle’s chances of winning the game. If the playoffs had been reseeded, the Saints would be playing at home this weekend — and they’d have an even greater chance of beating the very beatable Seahawks.

On this topic, NBC’s Tony Dungy made an excellent point during Wednesday’s PFT Live. The 11-5 Jets must play at the 10-6 Colts, and the 12-4 Ravens will be playing at the 10-6 Chiefs. No one has complained about the inequity of those situations.

And given that the Packers and Eagles have the same record and that the Packers beat the Eagles in Week One, all four wild-card games feature a division winner hosting a team that, technically, had a better overall season.

So we became curious about the impact of reseeding. And we decided to take a look at what a reseeded playoff field would look like, is applied right now.

With reseeding, the AFC would look like this: (1) Patriots; (2) Steelers; (3) Ravens; (4) Jets; (5) Colts; (6) Chiefs. Basically, the home-field advantage for this weekend’s game would be flipped, making it more likely that the two teams with the better records would advance.

Here’s the revised NFC field, if we assume a bye would never be given to a non-division winner: (1) Falcons; (2) Bears; (3) Saints; (4) Packers; (5) Eagles; (6) Seahawks. Again, home-field advantage for both games played on wild-card weekend would be flipped. (A full re-seed would have resulted in the Saints getting a bye and the Bears playing at home this weekend against the Seahawks.)

That said, we prefer the current approach. The league likes to sell hope in the offseason, and the notion that finishing with the best record of only four teams results in a playoff berth and a home game makes it easier for the fans of even the most downtrodden team to piece together a plausible path to the division-round of the playoffs, which puts them only two wins from the Super Bowl.

With the dust finally settled on Week 17, the coaching carousel whirling is in full swing, and with players heading home after cleaning out their lockers, we finally know who the top 16 teams in the league are.

More or less.

This year’s playoffs includes the likes of New England, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Indianapolis, New Orleans, and Green Bay. What else is new? The NFL’s glitterati continue to make the playoffs, year after year. But this year, something else happened, something that might actually sway the uber-conservative owners sometime in the near future (any big format changes are unlikely due to the difficulties with the expiring CBA).

Seattle made the playoffs.

Whoopdedo. Seattle used to be good, remember? Back in the glory days of... well, no one remembers, but most people are pretty sure that Seattle used to be kind of good. We think. But this year, calling the Rainin’ Seahawks “good” is a stretch of even the most limber imagination.

They’re 7-9. Here is a team that lost a majority of its games, yet still made the playoffs. Actually, wait: not only did they make the playoffs, they are hosting a home game. Marinate on that for a second. A sub-500 team is hosting a team that won twelve games in the first round of the playoffs. That team, the New Orleans Saints, has to travel 2500 miles to play at Qwest Field.

I can hear the traditionalists now, yelling the same old apologies for 8-8 division winners getting home games stretching back to the AFL merger. And really, it was easy to agree with them, because 8-8 wasn’t so bad. 8-8 at least says, “we tried our very best!” Sub-500 is different. Totally different. Sub-500 is a poor team, plain and simple.

Let’s look at the apologist argument for conventional wisdom now; it’ll become evident that a change needs to be made. And frankly, that change is easy and simple.

1. “They won their division – that’s their reward.”

Sort of. In reality, bad division winners are rewarded more for luck than anything else – for conveniently being the least-crappy team in a bad division. In a good division, like the NFC South, you can go 10-6 and miss the playoffs entirely, like the Bucs, because there are two teams in front of you – two of the best teams in the NFL. Where is the Saints’ reward for winning twelve games? Where is the Ravens’ home game?

It would be one thing if Seattle scraped out enough wins to come out on top of a highly competitive, knock-down drag-out division. You sometimes see this in NCAA basketball, for instance. Mid- to top-tier teams in hyper-competitive conferences like the Big East are often rewarded with a tournament bid, despite a less impressive record than teams elsewhere. Conversely, teams with an awesome record in, say, the MAC probably won’t get in unless they win their conference’s automatic bid because the competition is so weak. And a MAC team will practically never be given regional preference (the NCAA’s approximation of a home game).

Not the case for the NFC West.

Put it this way – you drop Seattle into the AFC North or East – with their record – and they don’t even make the wild card.

2. Complaining? Your team shouldn’t have lost .

Yes, you’re right. You know what? If the Ravens had just beaten Pittsburgh in that crucial game, if New Orleans had just scraped by Atlanta in Week 2, they would have won their division and would be hosting instead of being relegated to a wild-card seed. On the flip side, we’d just be having this conversation about the Steelers and the Falcons instead.

The bottom line is that if you win a ton of games, it should get you somewhere. If you’re good but unlucky enough to be in a division with a slightly more prolific team, the answer shouldn’t be “better luck next year.” There needs to be some sort of reward for doing so well.

3. This is no big deal – the better team will win anyway, road or not.

This is a patented falsehood. Home-field advantage, particularly in the playoffs and against teams that usually play in domes, is a huge deal. One of the strongest attributes of the Seahawks is that they have an awesome home crowd, in part because “rain 300 days of the year + beer = loud yelling” and in part because Qwest Field is designed to be as obnoxiously loud as possible. It is kind of sad that a major strength of your team is the fans, but that’s beside the point.

Five of Seattle’s seven wins came at home. The Chiefs, division winners of the AFC’s worst division, are a whopping 7-1 at Arrowhead. Think this doesn’t make a difference?

Yes, the better team should win, road or home. The Saints should resoundingly destroy the Seahawks. Jamaal Charles notwithstanding, the Ravens should win handily in Kansas City (although the Ravens have won only one game handily the entire year). But stranger upsets have happened, and home-field plays a major role. There is a reason Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski refuses to play true away games and restricts his non-conference scheduling to Madison Square Garden and neutral-site tournaments.

I’d just like to see good teams rewarded for being good. You know, fairness.

So what’s the alternative? It’s elegant and simple. Once the playoff field is set, reseed the teams based on record alone. If you want to get fancy, you could restrict the count to conference games only, but it probably isn’t necessary. Tiebreaking would have many steps, as it always does, but a good starting point could be head-to-head, then division record. Such an arrangement would have the seeding like this:

Great! With reseeding, you’d have the Chiefs and Ravens flipping home venue, with the Ravens hosting, and the Jets hosting the Colts in freezing outdoor New Jersey instead of the Manning-friendly confines of Lucas Oil Stadium. In the NFC, you have New Orleans hosting Seattle and the Packers hosting the Eagles at Lambeau. Makes a heck of a lot more sense, right?

I mean, really, who would this piss off, long-term, besides the teams that would get flipped this year? This is one of those no-brainer changes that should have been made years ago. Kind of like overtime – oh wait! That finally got fixed!

I guess the NFC West would be furious. Maybe they should get better at football. (Pre-emptive address to Seattle fans: No, I don't hate your team, despite the fact that your coach left USC mainly to avoid the fallout from turning a blind eye to his stars making more money than him. Don't believe me? USC Song Girls. End of story. I dislike the so-easily-fixed silly setup the NFL has going on that allows a team that even you, if you took off the green-and-blue tinted glasses, would admit simply isn't very good.)

(Additional sidenote: if you do a Google image search for "seattle playoffs," the first sixteen images are of the MLS team, with a couple Green Bay Packer helmets thrown in for good measure. See?)

Like I said above, however, it’s highly unlikely that anything gets through the owners this year. The probable lockout (Roger Goodell’s statements of soothing notwithstanding) looms large, and no major changes are likely to be introduced.

UPDATE (8:46 AM CST, 1/6/2010): According to Mike Florio at NBC's ProFootballTalk, Goodell said this morning that the league is going to look at the idea of playoff reseeding again.

Teams play nearly 40% of their games each year against their divisional foes. It's right to base the post season format on how they have done in their divisions.

What's the complaint here? NO should be thinking how lucky they are to have drawn such an easy wildcard game, not complaining that they have to play it on the road. What would you prefer: Seattle on the road or either of Philly or Green Bay at home? If the Saints can't beat the Hawks, even on the road, they sure don't deserve a shot at the SB.

January 7th, 2011, 7:29 am

steensn

RIP Killer

Joined: June 26th, 2006, 1:03 pmPosts: 13429

Re: League will look again at reseeding

I'm an idiot... I read it wrong... don't mind me... nothing to see here...

I guess I fall on the re-seeding side of this argument. I'm not necessarily sure, though, if it's necessary though. That may sound like a contradiction, but if it were to happen I would not be opposed to it. My reasoning is this:

Look at Oakland and what they did this year. They went 6-0 against the AFC West. Why isn't that enough to warrant a playoff spot? They had a better divisional record (6-0 vs 2-4) and an identical conference record (6-6) to the Chiefs. By looking at those raw numbers, Oakland seems more deserving of not only a playoff spot, but also a home game under the current system. But because the division record apparently doesn't mean jack, it's just a race to 9 or 10 wins (unless you're named the Giants, Chargers, or Buccaneers). Why even reward for division wins?

I don't think we'll have this issue very often in the future. If it becomes an issue in the future, where two sub .500 teams make the playoffs, then they'll be some real unhappy teams out there. Look at what the NBA playoffs have become, especially in the Eastern Conference. The 2009 Pistons made the playoffs and were the 8 seed against Cleveland. They got swept. There was no need for a team that won 39 games to be in the playoffs. That same year there were two teams that were at .500. While Phoenix, at 5 games over .500 were sitting at home watching the dreadful Pistons limp through a 4 game shellacking.

_________________Forward down the field!

January 7th, 2011, 5:35 pm

m2karateman

RIP Killer

Joined: October 20th, 2004, 4:16 pmPosts: 10136Location: Where ever I'm at now

Re: League will look again at reseeding

steensn wrote:

I'm an idiot... I read it wrong... don't mind me... nothing to see here...

Acceptance is the first step in recovery......

_________________I will not put on blinders when it comes to our QBs performances.